A’s for Athletes, but Charges of Fraud at North Carolina

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — In the summer of 2011, 19 undergraduates at the University of North Carolina signed up for a lecture course called AFAM 280: Blacks in North Carolina. The professor was Julius Nyang’oro, an internationally respected scholar and longtime chairman of the African and Afro-American studies department.

It is doubtful the students learned much about blacks, North Carolina or anything else, though they received grades for papers they supposedly turned in and Mr. Nyang’oro, the instructor, was paid $12,000. University and law-enforcement officials say AFAM 280 never met. One of dozens of courses in the department that officials say were taught incompletely or not at all, AFAM 280 is the focus of a criminal indictment against Mr. Nyang’oro that was issued last month.

Eighteen of the 19 students enrolled in the class were members of the North Carolina football team (the other was a former member), reportedly steered there by academic advisers who saw their roles as helping athletes maintain high enough grades to remain eligible to play.

Handed up by an Orange County, N.C., grand jury, the indictment charged Nyang’oro with “unlawfully, willfully and feloniously” accepting payment “with the intent to cheat and defraud” the university in connection with the AFAM course — a virtually unheard-of legal accusation against a professor.

The indictment, critics say, covers just a small piece of one of the biggest cases of academic fraud in North Carolina history. That it has taken place at Chapel Hill, known for its rigorous academic standards as well as an athletic program revered across the country, has only made it more shocking.

Two reports on the activities of the African and Afro-American studies department, one internal and one conducted by a former governor of North Carolina, James G. Martin, found problems with dozens of courses and said as many as 560 unauthorized grade changes were suspected of having been made — often with forged faculty signatures — dating back to 1997. The investigations began after reporting in The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., beginning in 2011.

Mr. Nyang’oro, who ran the department for 20 years, remains the mystery at the center of the case. Mr. Nyang’oro, who retired from the university in July 2012, is accused in the reports of teaching dozens of barely existent or questionably led classes and presiding over a department in which grades were illicitly changed, professors’ signatures were forged and athletes routinely enrolled in laughably lax classes.

But with each new disclosure, even as his reputation has been savaged, Mr. Nyang’oro has not explained himself.

“Julius has provided no help in answering our questions,” said Jay M. Smith, a history professor and a vocal critic of the way the university has handled the matter. “He’s been in a cone of silence for the last three years.”

Athletes, including many from the popular and revenue-producing football and basketball teams, made up nearly half of the students enrolled in the dubious courses.

The university says the blame rests firmly and exclusively with two people: Mr. Nyang’oro and Deborah Crowder, the department manager, who retired in 2009 after 30 years there.

Ms. Crowder had close ties to the athletic program and has long been in a relationship with a former North Carolina basketball player, Warren Martin. The two reports on the department’s activities each named Ms. Crowder as being involved in the infractions. Ms. Crowder, who has not been charged, did not return messages left on her home voice mail.

Some on campus and elsewhere are skeptical that just two people could carry out the questionable activities on their own. “How in the world could a scam like this go on for so long, and no one knew about it?” asked Mr. Smith, the professor.

Michael O. West, a friend and onetime North Carolina colleague of Mr. Nyang’oro, believes the university has made him a scapegoat. “My view is that the university is portraying these two people, Nyang’oro and Crowder, as a couple of rogue employees,” Mr. West said.

“But I am sure there were many people in the athletic department and elsewhere who were aware of it,” he added. “These two people are being made to take the blame and put out to dry, when the problem was institutional.”

Mr. Nyang’oro’s lawyer, Bill Thomas, told reporters in December that the case would give his client a chance to explain himself. “There’s been one side of this story that has been put forth in the press, but he’s going to have an opportunity to present his side,” Mr. Thomas said.

Mr. Thomas did not return calls, and Mr. Nyang’oro did not respond to messages seeking comment. At Mr. Nyang’oro’s home in an elegant neighborhood in Durham, N.C., he answered the front door one recent night but then closed it without saying anything.

Mr. West, now a professor at Binghamton University, said that Mr. Nyang’oro had provided at least a sliver of insight into his thinking in several emails.

After his resignation, Mr. Nyang’oro sent him a message saying he had left the university because it “ain’t worth the aggravation,” Mr. West said.

And after the indictment, Mr. Nyang’oro said in a message: “One of these fine days, I will be camping at your house just to get away from this craziness.”

Ms. Crowder never allowed university investigators to interview her, and Mr. Nyang’oro appears to have provided only the sparsest of information, leaving huge gaps in the public record. Many questions remain, including how far back the questionable activities went and how exactly they occurred.

A native of Tanzania, Mr. Nyang’oro came to the United States as a young scholar, and his résumé shows that he combined academic pursuits with numerous outside projects. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania in 1977, he earned master’s and doctoral degrees from Miami University and, in 1990, a law degree from Duke University.

Nyang’oro joined the North Carolina faculty in 1988 and, in 1992, was made the chairman of what would later become the African and Afro-American studies department. He has written extensively on African politics and economics and been a consultant for organizations in Washington, Ethiopia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, among other places.

“I’ve known Julius for more than 20 years, and he was a prime reason I ended up going back into academia,” said Kevin Brennan, the director of the study abroad program at the University of Connecticut, who taught in Mr. Nyang’oro’s department as a graduate student. “I did not see the behavior that’s been characterized, and I didn’t see it in the courses that I taught myself.”

People in the department described it as balkanized — professors stuck to their own courses and research — and said that Mr. Nyang’oro was an inattentive administrator who was often out of the country, even when he was supposed to be teaching. They said that his continual reappointment as the department chairman, a job most professors hold for 10 years at most, reflected the university’s indifference to what was going on there.

Though one former professor described Mr. Nyang’oro as “a determined Tar Heeler” who often went to North Carolina basketball games, no one has ever explained in detail what kind of relationship he had with the athletic department or why he apparently gave athletes and other students a break in his courses.

Administrators point out that numerous reforms have been put in place. These include a series of stringent controls over the curriculum and faculty in which, for instance, course syllabuses will be monitored, faculty teaching assignments regularly reviewed, and classes subject to spot checks to ensure they are actually meeting.

The university provost, James W. Dean Jr., said in an interview that there had been no way to anticipate such behavior on a large scale in an institution that relies on the professionalism and basic good will of its employees.

“Universities for a very long time have been based on trust,” Mr. Dean said. “One of the ramifications of this is that now we can no longer operate on trust.”

Correction:

An earlier version of this article misstated the year The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., began reporting on the case. It was in 2011, not 2012.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: A’s for Athletes, but Charges of Tar Heel Fraud. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe